A Seal of the Living God

ISAIAH’S PROPHECY OF THE SEALING MESSAGE

“Bind up the testimony: seal the law among my disciples.” 8:16. How shall we understand this? What testimony and law is this? and who are these disciples? Answer: the New Testament says, they are the followers of Jesus. But Isaiah’s prophecy is 741 years before Jesus was born; may he not mean disciples in the Old Testament? no: because the term is not used there. Well then, perhaps he meant the first disciples of Jesus? no, he could not have the law sealed among them, for if that had have been the case, the successors of the early disciples could have no benefit from the law. Stop says an opponent, it was nailed to the cross. That is what you have continually asserted, to your own shame and confusion! Let me ask you a question: What is the bible definition of sin? you answer, sin is the transgression of the law, 1st John 3:4. Paul also teaches that where there is no law, there is no sin. Then if the law was abolished at the crucifixion, there has not a living soul sinned for the last 1800 years. Do you believe that? O no! Well then, cease to preach your infidel, soul destroying doctrine. John by the inspiration of God in holy vision, has seen you trying to destroy God’s holy law; mark well his denunciations. “He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments, is a LIAR and the truth is not in him.” 1st John 2:4. Do not forget to notice the date of this epistle, it is 57 years after you say the law was abolished. SLG 54.2

I know you try to ease your consciences by calling it 1st, the law of the New Testament; 2nd, the law of Grace; 3rd, the law of life; and lastly “the perfect law of liberty.” I ask, where does life, and grace, and liberty, emanate from, but from God the law giver through Jesus Christ? SLG 55.1

Why are you continually seeking out some new way of your own to explain the simple law of God? Go to the decalogue, read it, and then search to know if it is written on your hearts, and cease your vain and fruitless endeavors to remodel, or abolish the law of God. SLG 55.2

There is but two distinct laws which the church of God were required to keep. 1. God’s law on tables of stone, and also on the heart. 2. Moses’s law of ceremonies. Now we know the last was abolished at the crucifixion. The 1st then, is the law which is now to be sealed up: why now? because God has thoroughly tried and proved the world in every way, to see if they would keep his commandments or no. He sees the great mass have utterly rejected them, but there is a remnant that have been trying to restore and honor them, and now Isaiah sees that he would seal it among his disciples, as John and Ezekiel has shown, and receive this remnant into Paradise from where the law (fourth commandment,) first emanated, and destroy all those that have transgressed it, and leave the earth empty and desolate, to keep her Sabbaths for 1000 years. Then when it is made new all who love God’s law (and no others,) will inherit it forever. SLG 55.3

Further: John saw in vision, that the remnant, (the last end,) the disciples of Christ were persecuted by the dragon for “keeping the commandments of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ.” - Revelation 12:17. Now mark! 1. These are the last portion of God’s people, and they are keeping his law. 2. They are the disciples of Jesus, because they keep his “testimony.” SLG 55.4

Then Isaiah saw the same remnant that John did; and sees that the testimony of Jesus was to be bound up with them, and the law, (or commandments, which is the same,) SEALED among them, or upon them. Now see them in the history he has given of them since they came out of the churches, and began to “keep the commandments of God and the faith or testimony of Jesus,” 14:12. Is there any such people? yes, yes! Where? answer, scattered all over the land. Do you know their names? yes, a great many of them. Then this point is clear. But there is further testimony, that these disciples are the law, or Sabbath keepers of the last days. See the next verse, Isaiah 8:17. “And I will wait upon the Lord that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him”. God is always represented as hiding his face from his people when they are in trials. I ask if this is not the very time that the remnant are passing through their last trials, collectively? yes. - Well, have they not been looking for the Lord collectively? yes. Do they wait upon him still? yes. Then that is settled also. Now 18th verse, “Behold I and the children whom the Lord hath given me, are for signs and wonders in Israel,” etc. Who are these? The same people. The first wonderful sign by which they were distinctly known from Second Advents, was shut door believers, but the greatest wonder, and sign by which they are now known is 7th day Sabbath believers. Why they really insist upon it that they are right. They are so stubborn that you cannot turn them. Again: when a stranger enquires for a certain person and says he was an adventist, sometimes the reply is there is several of that name that professed to believe that way. This person used to believe the door was shut. I confess I never knew what they did believe. Well, this person keeps the 7th day Sabbath. O, why hadn’t you said that at first? Know where he lives? yes! keep right on, and when you come into the place ask almost any body, and they can show you. I wonder what these strange folks won’t believe next? SLG 55.5

The shut door and Sabbath, then, are the two prominent marks by which they are known. Where is this view taught in the book. See Revelation 14:12. “Here is the patience of the saints; (or disciples,) here are they who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Isaiah has given the same distinctive marks in the 16th and 17th verses, already quoted. It is a people who are in their trial or patient waiting time for the Lord, having the law and the testimony. The present truth of which is the shut door, and 7th day Sabbath. 19th verse. “And when they shall say to you, seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter. Should not a people seek unto their God,“etc. I ask, when was there a time since the days of Pharaoh’s sorcerers, Janus, and Jambres, that the earth was so full of these wizards that have familiar spirits that are peeping and muttering as now, not only among the unprofessors, but among even the second advent believers some of them are teachers, and are called Ministers, Lecturers: yes, Editors; advocating the bible doctrine; and their boasting of their familiar arts only raises them higher in the estimation of many. SLG 56.1

Moses describes them to his people by calling them diviners, observers of times, enchanters, witches, charmers, consulters with familiar spirits, wizards and necromancers. - Deuteronomy 18:9-12. These were agents of the devil, and were to be utterly destroyed by God’s people, and their land (Canaan) become theirs by conquest with the sword. But it seems they did not destroy them all. For some three hundred years after Moses, Saul banished them from the land. Their power was so great then, that one (the witch of Endor,) could raise the righteous dead. 1 Samuel 28:3-7, 12. Some four hundred and twenty years after this, Josiah, king of Judea, banished them from the land again. Some twenty years after this it seems that these sorcerers had somewhat changed their names; they were now called Magicians and wise men. But with all their wisdom, if it had not have been for a righteous Daniel, these would have all been exterminated, because they could not tell the king his dream. - Daniel 2. SLG 57.1

Paul in his days classed them with murders and drunkards, etc. - Galatians 5:20, 21. It is stated when he was preaching in Ephesus, that the word of God so mightily prevailed that these diviners were so alarmed that they not only quit these evil practices, but they brought their books and burned them. I suppose Paul shew them that God had appointed all such to be put to death. - Leviticus 20:27. Acts 19:19. Since those days they have been increasing until the earth is now almost flooded with them, and their curious books. SLG 57.2

As in the days of Daniel, so now they have changed these odious names, and call their work Mesmerism, Animal Magnetism, Clairvoyance, etc. And some attempt to justify their sorceries by attributing the first cause to God, in the case of Adam and Eve, Genesis 2:21, 22; and thus they are endeavoring to counterfeit the work of God. They profess to heal the sick, and cause their subjects to pray, exhort, and sing, and even send them to heaven in clairvoyance, thereby counterfeiting the visions of God. Therefore, we say without fear of contradiction, that they are of their father the Devil and his works they do. God’s word stands directly opposed to it; and his people are required to overthrow it; not as Joshua did by the literal sword, but the sword of the spirit, the word of God. SLG 58.1

When? now; here is the time, God’s work was never counterfeited as it is at this day. Surely the Devil has come down in great wrath, knowing he has but a short time. Professors in hundreds and thousands are flocking to these sorcerers, and necromancers, to hear and see their wonderful peeping and muttering, and to be healed of their diseases, and have their fortunes told, while the cry is sounding “should not a people seek unto their God”? “To the law and the testimony if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Who, then, are to appeal to the law and testimony here? Why, those that are to have it bound up and sealed upon them. It certainly cannot be on those who say there is no law. I have already proved from Revelation 12:17, and other scriptures, that the disciples of the last days, are the only ones that could have the testimony of Jesus bound, and the law sealed upon them; because if the law ever had been sealed up before, as in Daniel’s vision’s, 12:4, 9, or Revelation 10:4, no other people ever could have been sealed with it. Then Isaiah’s prophecy agrees with Ezekiel 9:3, and Revelation 7:2. Now this cannot be the law of Moses, but the law of God. It is that which is a sign between God and man. The commandments are a sign. - Deuteronomy 6:1, 2, 5-9; 10:12, 13; 11:18. This is his whole law. Seal it among my disciples. Surely this will include the fourth, the Sabbath commandment. SLG 58.2

Again: God gave his people manna, to prove them, to see whether they would walk in his law or no; Exodus 16:4. But they violated his law by getting their manna on the 7th day, 27th verse. “And the lord said, how long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws. See, for the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, so the people rested on the 7th day, 27-30 verses. Here God calls the Sabbath his law. And he was proving them by giving them two days food in one, to see if they would keep it. Mark this! this was certainly thirty days before ever they came to Mount Sinai, where the ten commandments were given them on tables of stone. Question: where did this Sabbath, this law come from? Answer, no where, unless from the creation. - Genesis 2:2, 3. Then God calls his Sabbath his law, does he? yes. Now let Isaiah speak again, 8:16, seal the law (or the Sabbath which is God’s law,) among my disciples. John says “the servants of God” were sealed with “a seal of the living God,” this is his Sabbath. SLG 59.1

Let God speak again: “Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever.” - Exodus 31:16, 17. John saw in vision that the 144,000 to be sealed now (as we have proved,) with “a seal of the living God,” were of all the tribes of the children of Israel, 7:4. In the 3rd verse he shows that these were “the servants of our God.” The Sabbath then is to be kept for a perpetual COVENANT by God’s servants forever. SLG 59.2